I really should be saying ‘good week’ as what a week it’s been. There have been more ups and downs here in Chez Mortimer than found on a snakes and ladders board or even the proverbial actress’ knickers. I’ve even hardly found the time to write a new blog post because my time has been eaten up! Anyway I’m here now and I’ve managed to squeeze a few things down on paper!

I’ve got so many things that have to be finished before June 1st it’s getting ridiculous. Why do I commit myself to so many causes you might ask me? I’m busy wondering that too. Next month I’m promising to cut back, lose some of the groups I ‘belong’ to and yet can’t find the quality time to spend with them. It’s not fair to them and it’s not fair to me.

I’ve committed to writing a piece for a much admired journalist by June 1st. Have I started it? Have I heck! Next week I promise…

I’ve promised that marvelous group, IndieChicksCafe a short story/piece about travel for June 1st. That I have finished and it just needs a bit of spit and polish to knock it into shape. Maybe tomorrow…

I have finished my rewrite of The Crossing and nearly suffered a heart attack when my editor thought they wouldn’t be able to proofread and edit it for me this month. Needless to say she’s come up trumps once again and I hope to have a brand-spanking-new book out by June 12th and it’s a cracker. I’ve added so much more content that it’s now going into 2 volumes: The Crossing, ‘Seeds of Time’ part 1 and The Crossing, ‘Harvest’, part 2. All adventure, action, romance, rite of passage and war. Something for EVERYONE!

And I’ve now managed to write over 42,000 words for my latest work in progress. It’s the fourth Diana Rivers, mystery suspense whodunit set in The Cotswolds in England. Diana and Steve join a group of old thespian friends for a film shoot and while there things go horribly wrong. Once again Diana finds herself embroiled in another murder or maybe two…

I keep changing my mind about the title for this book and I thought it might be fun if I asked you to come up with a suggestion. If I can give you a very short synopsis to work on…

…Set in The Cotswold Hills of England, a group of actors get together for a film shoot all dressed in Tudor costume. There is at least one murder. The house is a large period building complete with a lake and maze… at least eight suspects… I’d be interested in what you come up with!

Briefly, I've made The Bamboo Mirror - which incidentally is a bestseller, FREE and in case you are not familiar with my work here is a short story which is both poignant and tender. Please download your free copy of The Bamboo Mirror and Enjoy! Thanks

I first saw her standing at the enrolment desk, clutching her papers in the crook of an arm, cheque in her other hand. She was tall and slim, with long mid-brown hair that fell in soft waves around her face and shoulders. I guessed her age to be middle to late forties. Another contender for night school I thought, she’s probably here for the upholstery or cake decorating classes.

A draught from the double doors caught me as a small group entered, laughing and chattering, their noisy interruption causing the woman in front to look round, a small smile upon her face at their oblivious loud entrance. The enrolment clerk looked over and frowned in annoyance, and as he did, I met her eyes, large, wide and an unusual green. Her smile broadened and I caught my breath. Was she directing that gorgeous look at me?

‘Next please,’ said the clerk. The moment passed as she turned her attention to him.

I daydreamed as she completed her paperwork and handed him her payment. There was no chance she’d be in my Greek Language class!

~~~~~

Surprisingly, the room was packed and after our introductions to each other in simple Greek, the teacher soon got into her swing. She covered the board with the Greek alphabet, not just a foreign language to me but a totally alien one. Few of the characters looked familiar. I sighed, wishing perhaps I’d taken up upholstery myself.

Our lesson was interrupted by a knock at the door and there she stood, my lady with the gorgeous smile.

‘Sorry I’m a bit late, but I had an important phone call just now that I had to deal with.’ She cast an apologetic look around at everyone and the teacher nodded in a friendly fashion.

‘I’m Rebecca by the way, with two c’s,’ she said inching her way in and looking round for an empty desk and chair. For some inexplicable reason I just knew she was going to sit next to me and moved the chair out so she could slide in without any bother. Smiling her thanks she removed a pad and pen from her bag and joined the class. I was smitten.

~~~~~

‘I’m taking the dog out for his walk,’ I say, shrugging into my best leather jacket and scarf.

‘Uh-huh,’ she says, digging into the box of chocolates that rarely leaves her side, eyes glued to her favourite soap of the evening.

Has she actually heard what I’ve said? She never offers to accompany me, and I am glad. Why has it come to this? We rarely do anything meaningful together these days. It was great in the beginning, a new adventure. We met; we dated and I thought we fell in love. Nowadays, she hardly notices if I’m there. She rarely suggests we go out together, or notices what I’m doing. When she returns from work in the evening, leaving her green Mini parked on the driveway she makes a beeline for a snack from the fridge. She usually suggests a takeaway for later; she rarely puts herself out to cook – for me. We eat in silence, plates on our laps, in front of the television.

She knows I’m taking the dog out more regularly; she made a comment some months ago. ‘Good thing Bomber’s got you. I just haven’t got the energy and besides it’s far too cold.’

Yes, Bomber and I go out very regularly, the exact time every morning and evening. She never asks where we go or why I choose those times. She’s more content to snuggle down under the duvet, guzzling tea or red wine.

I fetch Bomber’s lead from the hook behind the kitchen door. He’s there, ready and willing. His feathery tail wags until you think he’s going to lose it and he makes little throaty noises of joy. He’s my one source of love in this place now and yet, I feel guilty in using him to get me out and away from the house.

I close the door behind me and notice there’s been a soft sprinkling of snow. Bomber is overjoyed with all this soft white stuff and snuffles around making little excited barks. Can he know?

Walking down the road toward the wreck I feel an uplifting of my heart. She has a dog like Bomber, an overgrown Golden Retriever, and she’s married too. She meets me every morning and evening, same time, same place for an hour. I live for those stolen hours.

We’ve never said anything, nothing significant. But when I look at her and she gives me that gorgeous smile in return we both know.

So I’ve brushed my hair, cleaned my teeth, and put on my smart jacket, that is really unsuitable for walking a dog, and gone to meet her.

She’s a beautiful girl and I don’t just mean that in looks. She’s quiet, but strong. I know she’s married, because of her ring, but neither of us really mention our partners. In the beginning we decided it was too unfair to talk about them, to air our grievances and disappointment with our sad, loveless marriages. Neither of us wants to slag our partners off.

We keep to safer things. We love our dogs, and her bitch, Megan behaves like she’s in love too with Bomber as she prances and preens around him. It reminds us of the film, Lady and the Tramp. We laugh at their obvious joy and we’re comfortable with each other. She tells me she is originally from Canada, and I think I detect a hint of a transatlantic twang. She likes horses and riding, swimming and walking, and she loves Greece. We discuss plays we’ve seen, and share music; I copy CD’s for her and occasionally we exchange a favourite book. When we agree on a newfound author, my heart beats wildly. I love her long brown curly hair and her smiley eyes and deep luscious mouth that curves into a smile just for me.

Except, this evening she’s not there. I stand in the darkened park near our bench, beneath the lamplight. I watch Bomber scamper around chasing snowflakes and catching them on his tongue. I wonder if she is ill. She was Okay this morning. Did her husband suspect? Only there’s nothing to suspect. We haven’t done wrong, not even a kiss. But we both know.

I wait over an hour, and then I think about returning towards home. Home?

My mind flits to my life. Why had it all gone sour? When had we drifted apart, floundered upon the rocks and I stopped living and began to endure? We had been in love, I was sure of it. Yes, we had been young and silly, and living together was all part of the thrill. We overthrew our parents’ misgivings and married blissfully unaware. We were happy for a time, until things were simply wrong.

We lost a child, just four years old to leukaemia. She could never bring herself to have another, and now there was just this empty space between us.

Bomber brings me a stick and I throw it for him. His joyous bark echoes around the parkland. I wonder how long I can carry on like this. It’s been bad for years if I’m truthful. I only come alive when I see her. My heart aches for her. Where is she?

Despondent, I turn to retrace my footsteps, giving one last look around, and there is Megan, bounding up to me. But where is she?

‘Where’s your mistress?’ I ask. Bending down I give her a stroke and notice the collar. There is a tag with a telephone number on it. Is she following? Or is she injured somewhere? I am alarmed, I can’t leave Megan and I need to find her mistress.

‘Where’s your mistress,’ I ask Megan again. ‘Go! Find her!’

Megan stands before me wagging her tail. I repeat my command and she rushes off with Bomber and me following. We walk round the park and I realise it is our usual route and we end up back where we started. I look at the telephone number again and I hesitate. Should I ring her? I am torn. I take out my mobile phone and am just about to dial when it rings.

‘Where are you? You’ve been gone over two hours now and it’s getting late. I wanted a takeaway.’ My heart sinks. Her voice is not the one I want to hear. Vaguely I am surprised she has even noticed I’m not yet home.

‘I lost Bomber for a while,’ I say. ‘He skipped off after a rabbit, but I’ve got him now. We’ll be home shortly.’ I don’t like to lie but I feel I have no choice.

‘Right,’ she says. ‘I’ll make myself a sandwich then, I suppose.’ She sounded cross.

I end the call and go to put the phone back in my pocket, mind made up. Then I pause, shall I make that call? I can hardly leave Megan out here by herself and she might follow me back home. I dither. Ringing her home number means venturing into her and her husband, Jim’s life. Something we both vowed never to do. What if he answers?

I decide I can’t abandon Megan and dial the number. There is a slight pause while I’m connected and then I hear a recorded message. ‘Sorry Rebecca and Jim can’t answer the phone right now. Please leave your name and number and we’ll get right back to you. Bye!’

‘It’s John,’ I say before I have time to change my mind. ‘I have Megan with me. Where are you? She followed me on our walk. What shall I do with her?’

I leave my phone number and prepare to walk home. When I look round for Megan she has vanished. ‘Megan, Megan.’ I call. Bomber looks at me as if I’m slightly mad. Sighing, I turn round and we finally walk home. With the snow falling all around me there is an eerie silence. I scrunch up our drive and I’m surprised to find that Susan has actually managed to put her car away in the garage for once. Judging by the tyre tracks in the snow she’s obviously made a meal of it. Susan’s not the best of drivers. Entering the kitchen I was surprised to see her still up. She gives me a look with what I can only describe as strained, and I am even more surprised to find that she was anxious over my delay.

‘Where have you been? I’ve been waiting ages and ages. It’s far too late for a takeaway now, besides I had that sandwich. I was starving.’ I eye her bulky shape in the unflattering black sweater and skirt. She didn’t look like she was starving.

‘What happened?’ She peers at me. ‘Why are you upset?’

I make my excuses, blaming poor Bomber and his zealous rabbit chasing. Lies again. I can’t tell her the truth.

Later, in bed I lie there staring at the ceiling, watching the car lights chase across the walls. Susan is sleeping soundly. She mutters in her sleep and turns towards me, but I push her away. Oh God! It wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, we’d both have fallen on each other, passionately, ripping our clothes away and devouring lips, tongues, and bodies. Susan had been like a vixen in bed, now there was nothing.

What made people change? Was it the death of our child? I know Susan had been depressed for years after, but I thought she’d got over it, as we never spoke about him now. I realised she’d let herself go. The slovenliness and the weight gain. She seemed far older than her years; she was younger than Rebecca but acted ten years older. She wasn’t the woman I’d married and I’d tried. Oh God how I’d tried! But I wanted nothing of her now.

Rebecca had given me a new purpose in life. She’d put a ‘spring’ in my step. I knew she was the reason I had a certain look in my eyes. Had Susan noticed? I doubt it; she noticed nothing else about me these days. And thinking about it, there was nothing for her to notice anyway and maybe never will be. We had never discussed leaving our spouses, nothing even remotely like that.

I turn over, thinking about tomorrow. I feel a shaft of fear go through me. Will she be there?

Leaving the house the next morning, I hasten to the park. All is quiet and lonely. There is no sign of either Rebecca or Megan. I let Bomber sniff around his favourite haunts, my hands deep inside my pockets, my back hunched over.

Is this what it is like to lose someone? Will it always be like this from now on? My heart aches to hear her voice. My mobile rings.

‘I’m afraid there’s been a terrible accident. We need to speak to you. Can you come down to Guildford police station?’

I whisper a ‘yes’ down the phone. I am numb all over.

~~~~~

‘Hit-and-run,’ he says later. ‘Poor woman didn’t stand a chance. She was crossing the road with her dog.’ I look at him blankly. He returns the stare. ‘Did you know her very well?’

I swallow; it’s painful to speak with a lump the size of a pigeon’s egg in your throat. ‘No, not well. We both have dogs you see. We sometimes met and the dogs would play together.’ I stretch the truth a little, hating myself in doing so. For some reason guilt hangs over me.

‘I see. I guess that is why you rang when they didn’t turn up?’

My mind was in a whirl. They?

Finally I found my voice. ‘Megan, Rebecca’s dog was there. I saw her – I said so on the telephone.’ I blurted out.

He gives me a sad and thoughtful look. ‘They were both killed outright.’

‘No, no! That can’t be true! Megan was there. She was with me. That’s how I could ring Rebecca; her number was on the dog’s collar.’

Shaking his head, Inspector Roberts looks down at his report. ‘Couldn’t have been, the dog was hit first. Mrs Chalmers walked out to help her dog and was then driven over afterwards – a second hit. Our witness says he couldn’t see the number but he recognised it as a green Mini. There can’t be too many registered around here. I don’t suppose you saw anything?’

Shocked, I shake my head, a numbness creeping over my body.

‘Megan was there.’ I repeat in a whisper.

Walking home, my eyes are misted with tears. How had Megan come to be there? I’d stroked her glossy coat; I’d seen the light shining in her eyes. Had Rebecca sent her? As a vision to tell me, to warn me what had happened? Were our feelings so strong that even in death she could reach out to me? Reach out to me, yet when alive it had been forbidden? I’d never have known her phone number or spoken to the police if I hadn’t seen it on Megan’s collar last night.

I haven’t spoken to Susan yet. I know she’s visiting a neighbour this morning. Arriving home, I go straight to our garage and stare at Susan’s green Mini. Nausea washes over me as I see the huge dent in the bonnet. I catch a gleam of gold and I realise that dog hair is trapped in the dent.

Tears roll unchecked down my face as I stand there shaking. Susan has known all along. But what has she known? There was nothing to know, was there?

I pull out Inspector Roberts’ card and with trembling hands I dial his number.

The above two sayings are good old British slang relating to courage. Courage was defined by Winston Churchill as, ‘Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities ... because it is the quality that guarantees all others.’

The word courage is often used in the wrong context. Courage is not, feeling or not feeling fear, it is not doing great deeds or with life-and-death situations. But you often need courage to do or feel these things.

Courage is a form of stubbornness. You don’t want to stop whatever you’re doing even when you need to because you’re exhausted or shamed. Courage is as necessary in everyday life as it is in moments of great turmoil. Therefore, because courage is as essential to the writer as breathing, it stands to reason that the writer who lacks courage will never thrive.

I’ll put it in simple words. You as a writer are going to try and sell your works to people who don’t care whether you make it or not – or in this scenario, breathe. You’re going to show all your hard efforts to a variety of people: editors, maybe agents, publishers and hopefully and eventually your readers. You’re going to persuade some or (all of them) how talented you are and they must present or read your work in a world who has never even heard of you.

And all the time you’re doing this you’re not going to succeed. You’ll send out your manuscript or a sample of your work and they’ll come back with little notes saying ‘sorry but not for us’ etc. Or you’ll sit and watch your rankings slide and slide on Amazon.

When this happens you’re going to feel like hell. You’ll take all the rejections seriously and personally. You’ll feel hurt, let down, ashamed and you’ll want to crawl away and die.

But let’s take a handful of magic fairy dust ~ courage. You push the rejections into a deep dark drawer, send out some more tweets/ emails to friends and you take one day at a time and PRESTO! You’ve sold something! You’ll see the magic ranking on Amazon move up a notch and you think you’re going to succeed. Maybe you won’t, but once you’ve sold one you’ll keep going and you’ll sell again.

Perhaps you think, let’s try to self-publish. You’ve had enough of dealing with agents and publishers. And in doing so you’ll have a huge new load on your mind from writing the book to artwork, formatting the e-version, selling and marketing! You might have enough money to get someone to help you, but whatever you do; you’re investing in your talent to write a good story. And it is a story worth spending the time in reading. It doesn’t stop there…as you need to write another and another to keep those readers hooked.

So you’ve made it. You’re selling books every day…but wait a minute…you’ve just received a horrible review. You’ll have people who think they’re far better at writing than you are! For shame! But you’ll also receive those glowing, fabulous reviews that make it all worthwhile. And for every good review there’s always the chance you’ll receive a bad one. Don’t be disheartened. You’ve only got to check out some of the great writers, Dickens, Bronte, Tolkien, Twain, Fitzgerald, Salinger, Steinbeck, Churchill, Shakespeare et al. only to find they’ve all been on the receiving end of some lousy reviews.

I’m always delighted by the good reviews, and I’m always hurt by the bad ones. It is life and it is what makes us human.

So carry on writing your books and find your audience. You might discover some of your friends ignore you; after all you’re succeeding where they’ve failed. You might have to put them out of mind, even your family are not always as supportive as they could be. All the time you’re still facing that chance of failure.

So far you’ve felt pain and rebuff and insignificance. You’ve had your talent and your hope battered, and you’ve cried your private tears, while putting on a brave face in public.

You are just beginning to realise you will never leave the struggle behind. Every book is another chance to fail as much as it can succeed. Every day is a challenge, and every day requires courage.

You have to place yourself in a position to fail, or you cannot succeed. Courage is saying “One more step’… up that mountain, taking your own path. It takes courage, but it only takes the sort of courage everybody can have. The real courage is not to quit when quitting would be the easy thing to do. Remember. All you have to do is take one more step.

Thank you for dropping by and reading my blog post today. I have a lot of writer friends who often write and bemoan their lot, whether it is from a bad review or just a feeling of isolation. I hope I give them the help and support they need when they need it most. A writer’s life is often hard and lonely, but it doesn’t have to be. Make good friends, treasure them and help one another, after all it might be you needing their help one day.

Good Day!I don't know but if you're like me, then your days and weeks are absolutely whizzing past this year. So fast I can hardly keep up with the day to day things, let alone get on with that most important item of all...writing! I have two novels with my editor (fingers-crossed she'll like them and sign them off) and I'm 12,000 words into my work in progress - another mystery murder set in The Cotswold Hills in England. But just lately my website had been sadly ignored. I've interviewed other writers, spoken about certain writing aspects for starters - but I don't think I've ever posted sample chapters of my novels on here. So! Here is a sample from my best-selling novel The Assassins Village. I do hope you enjoy it and many thanks for stopping by.

Have a great weekend and make sure you have some time to yourself!!

Faithx

The Assassins' Village Chapter 5. Sunday 29th.Come what come may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day. Macbeth. Act 1 Scene 3 Leaning against the old china sink, Sonja drank her second glass of ice-cold water. She normally walked her dogs in the cool of the early morning, but today she somehow could not get herself together. She had not slept well during the hot and airless night, and just as the first grey light had spread over the hillside opposite, she had fallen into a deep troubled slumber. When Leslie woke her a little later, asking when she might or might not be preparing breakfast, he had found that she was annoyed, as she’d overslept for the first time in years. ‘You might have woken me before now,’ she grumbled, tossing the crumpled and damp bed sheet to one side. ‘Now I’m all behind, and the dogs haven’t had their early walk,’ she paused at the end of their bed in an accusatory stance. Leslie eyed her with a rather baleful expression that could have meant anything. He twitched the sheet to recover his legs and picked up the book he had been reading. He had been in the mood for sex earlier, but he knew what the answer would have been if he had suggested it. Her and her annoying, damn dogs. These days she had little time to spare for him. Apart from the animals, she spent hours working in the garden and the rest in the kitchen. Her passion was making the most lavish of iced cakes, which she sold to a baker’s shop in Episkopi. Sonja gave an exasperated sigh, before flouncing off towards the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Leslie gave a little spiteful smile. He was out of sorts himself for these past few days. It was time for someone else to feel irritated with life. Glancing out of the nearby window Leslie saw that the sun had climbed halfway up into the sky. Already, he could feel the promise of another scorching day. Another ten minutes and it would be too hot to lie in bed. The sound of the telephone brought him out of his reverie; it was early for friends to call despite a Cypriot day starting at first light. Slightly puzzled, Leslie lifted the receiver and listened. ~~~ Sonja hadn’t noticed it was yet another beautiful and sunny day. Leslie’s sudden announcement that the police were planning on paying them – no him, let us get that straight, a visit later that morning had placed her mind in a whirl. She could not begin to imagine what they could possibly want with Leslie. He had done nothing wrong that she knew of, except been extremely late in taxing the car again. As usual he had misplaced the renewal paperwork, and being a complete computer dinosaur, he hadn’t yet mastered the art of doing it over the Internet despite everyone saying how convenient and simple it was. Leslie said that the policeman was adamant. He wanted to speak to Leslie, and would around eleven o’clock be convenient? On a Sunday as well! Shortly after eleven, the doorbell to the courtyard rang and Sonja opened it to face two men dressed in suits. One was short and swarthy with a badly pitted olive complexion. His mother had obviously never heard of acne treatment when he had been in his teens. He was about forty-ish, had a receding hairline, and looked grumpy.The younger man was tall and rangy; his dark brown eyes were alert, probably never missing a thing. Sonja felt him staring deeply as the older man addressed her, and despite the sun, could not help suppressing a shiver. ‘Kuria Flowers? I am Inspector Andreas Christopopodolou and this is my colleague Sergeant Yiannis Loukiades. I believe your husband is expecting us, yes?’ Sonja took the dry outstretched hand in front of her. Later, she wished she had never been there to receive them. That she had never met the two policemen who were so polite to her. But above all, she wished she had never learnt the reason why they had cause to visit her husband in the first place. How could he the stupid fool? For years, she had known about his past affairs with other, prettier women. But to have the police involved in something that was so scandalous, and sordid. At first she refused to understand what they were saying. When they interviewed Leslie she couldn’t believe her ears. It must be all a ghastly mistake? The woman must be partly to blame evidently. Those who wore short skirts and low-necked blouses were nothing short of being common surely? Her mind whirled with all sorts of questions as she listened to what they had to say. As soon as the supercilious inspector and his observant sergeant had left their house and were out of earshot Sonja turned to Leslie in a rage. ‘How dare you! It’s bad enough that I have had to put up with your affairs over the years, but now this. They accused you of pestering her! Do you know how serious that is? And what if our so-called friends and neighbours get to find out, eh? Can you imagine the mileage they’ll get out of it?’ she hissed at him. ‘What were you thinking of? You’re nothing but an ageing Lothario and a bloody stupid one at that.’ Sonja’s voice took on an edge that was bordering on the hysterical. She persisted in shouting at him. Her body shook with anger. Her usually pale eyes darkened as she worked herself up into a fury; her face suffused a mottled red. As much as Leslie was used to her often-short outbursts of temper, he appeared taken aback by the hate and venom that showed in the stiff rigid lines of her body and face. Never, had he seen her so angry. In order to diffuse the situation he attempted to make light of the matter. ‘Sonja, Sonja calm down. I tell you it’s all a little misunderstanding. I haven’t been near her at all. Okay, I admit I was attracted to her, once upon a time, but that’s all it was, just a slight attraction to a pretty woman. We enjoyed a mutual flirtation. That is all. Believe me. Nothing happened. Honestly.’ ‘Do you really expect me to believe all that, that bullshit? I heard what the police said. They wouldn’t have come here if she hadn’t made some sort of complaint about you. I know she is the last of your tarts in a long line of your “little lapses in marital harmony”. As if that is not enough! You are a bloody liar! You couldn’t leave her alone, like all the others, another one of your “horizontals”. Except this time, you couldn’t take the hint when she told you to leave her alone. That it was all off. Oh no, not you.’ ‘I’ve told you the police have it all wrong,’ he whined in a conciliatory tone as if he was just realising she was going to make this difficult for him. ‘It’s all been blown out of proportion, believe me.’ ‘That’s half the trouble. I don’t bloody believe you. Leslie, why would they have bothered to come all this way? It’s a good half an hour from Limassol. No. You’re lying again, only this time you’ve gone too far. You’ve probably terrified the little harlot and a good thing too, she should have known better. She should have kept her hands off someone else’s husband. God knows there are enough single men on this island for her to pick and choose from.’ ‘She’s not a harlot,’ Leslie said quietly. ‘You’ve always liked Tilly before.’ Sonja could not stop herself. Before she knew what she was doing she had hit Leslie hard across the mouth. ‘Don’t you dare mention that woman’s name to me,’ she screeched, her Scottish accent becoming more pronounced. ‘Get out. Get out before I throw you out. I’ve a good mind to anyway. I’ve had enough. This is the final straw.’ Leslie reeled back from the force of her hand. An angry red mark was livid across his left cheek and his lower lip was bleeding from where Sonja’s ring had torn his unprotected skin. He looked astounded at her violence; a cold nasty glint appeared in his eyes. He drew himself up, a threatening look upon his face. ‘I doubt that. I doubt that very much. You’re forgetting My Lady, that I own this house. It’s in my name only. Likewise, the same will apply when we eventually move to our new one next month. So don’t you ever forget it,’ he withdrew a cotton handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his split lip before continuing. ‘No, my dear. Remember, I call the final tune,’ his rejoinder was accompanied with a spiteful malicious smile. ‘You’re a total bastard! I hate you!’ she spat at him. ‘Maybe, but while I’m alive, I’m the one that calls the tune. As I’ve said before you’ve nothing without my say so. And you know what they say about hate being akin to love.’ ‘You’re nothing but a-a, fucking power freak,’ she replied shakily. ‘Oh, you can talk,’ he said, putting his handkerchief away. ‘I’m going out now for a walk. It’ll give you time to think about your position and let you calm down. Go and try to repair your face. Crying doesn’t make you in the slightest bit attractive.’ Sonja could not believe he could be so horrible, so completely thoughtless and cold. She watched him as he cockily crossed the tiled floor of the dining room. He picked up a straw hat and placed it jauntily on his head. Without bothering to give her another look he flung open the door to the outside. The blazing sunshine streamed into the room, dust motes whirling in the draught. Seemingly, without a care in the world, he sauntered down onto the cobbled lane that led to their usual walk along the lower track. Still standing where he had left her, Sonja began to shake uncontrollably. She knew not why, but found she couldn’t stop. She shook with anger and shock. Her legs felt wobbly and she could not move. She was annoyed with herself for letting it come to this. Furious with him for the distress it caused her. Most of all, she was livid because he did in fact hold all the cards. He was right; he did own the house. She possessed very little money of her own, a small pension and a few savings. He had not wanted her to have a career. Leslie preferred her to stay at home and provide all the comforts he desired. All their time together she had been forced to accept his domination over her. She hadn’t noticed it at first, during their early and happier years. Later she began to resent his control. Once he died – and he was nearly twenty years older than she – then his will stated that the house would become hers. There was not a lot to look forward to until then. Not until she was free of him. Sonja finally realised. It had taken something like this for the reality to sink in. A tear escaped her eye and then another. Damn him! Damn him to hell. She traced Leslie’s footsteps over to the outer door and took hold of it to close it. Before she could do so however, a shadow fell across her and she looked up to see Alicia standing there.